Chicago Close-up

Shorts pack feature punch at Chicago Filmmakers

November 20, 2009|By Nina Metz

Short narrative films may be a staple of film fests, but you won't find them at the multiplex, and they are hardly considered the bread-and-butter of art house cinemas. All the more reason to check out a sampling of those that made the rounds in 2009, the best of which screen Saturday at Chicago Filmmakers.

Dubbed "Hearts on Fire," the evening is a rare opportunity to see short indie films that skirt cliches. Don't let the modest scale fool you -- plenty can happen in just a few minutes of screen time. These are professional quality films, fully realized and entirely cinematic.

For Saturday's lineup, programming director Todd Lillethun has put together a selection of nine films, all of which played at festivals this year. A good number won awards. There's not a dud in the bunch. (On Dec. 21 and 22, the Music Box Theatre also will screen a separate collection of short films that played at Sundance this year.)

"There's a precision that's unique to the form," Lillethun told me, "so things have to happen very quickly to pull people in and make them forget about the time limitations."

Some highlights:

"Flat Love": "Once there was a boy who met a girl at the museum, and he fell madly in love with her" goes the voice-over narration by Isabella Rossellini. "But she was flat."

So begins this meticulously surreal, goofily thwarted romance from Madrid-based filmmaker Andres Sanz, about a man who becomes fixated on a Roy Lichtenstein pop art painting of a sexy comic book beach girl, an image "perfect as the two-dimensional love interest of the male character," said Sanz. "The painting also gave me the entire visual style of the film with rich, saturated color and clean-cut comic book lines."

Despite the length, the short took three years to make. "A lot of work for just 15 minutes of film," Sanz acknowledged, "but it's been worth every second. Making magic takes time."

"Short Term 12": Based on his own experiences as a 20-something working at a residential facility for at-risk teenagers, filmmaker Destin Cretton's fictional day-in-the-life is amusing and intense, with a verite look that suits the subject matter.

"Technically you're called a child-care worker," Cretton told me. "That's an interesting thing about the job -- one of the big themes about the movie is that you're not a trained counselor, but a lot of those roles kind of become yours. So it's pretty easy to feel ill-equipped as a supervisor for these kids. I wasn't much older than some of them." In the film, a staffer (played by indie fixture Brad William Henke) confiscates pot from one of his charges, only to bolt to the restroom where he smokes it himself.

According to Cretton, Henke signed on pretty quick. "The year prior to the shoot, he adopted a 16-year-old girl from a group home, so he immediately understood that world." The girl, Phoenix Henke, was eventually cast in the film as a teenager with rage and abandonment issues. "It did kind of blur the lines between documentary and fiction. They were working through some real stuff and real issues that she had built up from her past."

"Treevenge": A slasher flick for tree huggers, Jason Eisener's film stars evergreen trees as hilariously heartbreaking characters -- shivering and bleating like lambs off to the slaughter. You will never look at a Christmas tree the same way again.

The film has a terrifically skewed sense of humor and major entertainment value. Eisener cites the 1974 horror film "Black Christmas" as his main stylistic influence: "The wide-angle perspective of the Christmas trees comes from the wide-angle perspective of the killer in that movie." It's the most overtly comedic film on the bill; whatever your personal politics may be, funny is funny.

For more information about Saturday's program, go to ChicagoFilmmakers.org.

Moon landing

For the truly committed "Twilight" fan, the Charlestowne Cinema 18 in St. Charles has an entire "New Moon" shebang planned, including an interactive display and prize drawings. There's also, rather hilariously, a blood drive. For more info, go to classiccinemas.com and click on "special events." And in a separate event, "New Moon" actors Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz (who play Alice and Emmett Cullen) are scheduled to make appearances at the Hollywood Blvd. Cinema in Woodridge and the Hollywood Palms Cinema in Naperville. For more info go to hollywoodpalmscinema.com.

Rock doc

Cobbled together from footage captured by fans and musicians alike on cell phones and video cameras, "All Tomorrow's Parties" is the DIY documentary about the sponsorship-free annual British music festival of the same name. Featuring performances by Sonic Youth, Patti Smith and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (among others) in what LA Weekly calls "part concert film, part rebel manifesto." The film screens Friday at Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. For more info, go to facets.org.

'Rebuilding Hope'

Chicago premiere of the film featuring the "Lost Boys" of South Sudan, who fled civil war and some of whom resettled in Chicago. The film follows several of the "Boys," now in their 20s, back to Sudan to check on the status and needs of their native land. Admission is $10, and proceeds benefit the projects initiated by the young men. Filmmaker Jen Marlowe and Chicago area resident (and subject of the film) Garang Mayuol will be available for a Q&A after the screening. 8 p.m. Friday, Portage Theatre, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., portagetheater.org.

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Nina Metz is a Tribune special contributor. Send items for Chicago Close-up to ninametzfilm@gmail.com.